Driving the uninsured to private insurance companies thru a democratic party controlled congress is just plian nuts. This appraoch will will ruin the democrats for 2010 and beyond. It is time for a new political alignment of national parties: conservatives, corporatists and progressives. Fix campaign finance reform and have alittle democracy back in gov't.

There is one way a 'medicare for all public option' and private insurers can exist in the same market (assuming we are worried about the fate of insurers).
The insurers would have to borrow, perhaps at subsidized low interest rates from the government, and buy back all their shares from shareholders, delist from stock markets and become mutual companies owned by policyholders.
In the current model they are trying to serve two masters(well, not really trying that hard), shareholders and patients. This is and will only become more unsustainable.

Yes, exactly. Don't force Americans to buy crap insurance.

Ezra Klein reported that there's a split in the White House between the policy team and the political team. The policy team wants a scaled back bill, under the theory that subsidies can be increased later. The political bill wants an extremely scaled back bill that just increases Medicaid and does some insurance reforms.

Provided that the latter approach drops the individual mandate -- and that I had to choose between these rotten options -- I'd go with Rahm's team on this one. Better half a loaf than a poisoned loaf.

Yes, this is where the discussion should be: On the nuts and bolts and how things will and won't work. Unfortunately, since there has been no concrete bill to discuss, the Oligarchists have used the Toy Crazies to hijack the debate. That has served them well so far. And that is why it is critical for Obama to be clear about what he will insist upon. The public option isn't some appendage that can get lopped off without consequence (like, say, a pinkie tip). The public option is what makes the reform package work.

It appears to me that the Oligarchists have concluded the following: 1) some legislation will pass; 2) the line in the sand is the public option and that is what they have targeted; 3) without a public option -- even with a public option "trigger" -- the Oligarchists win. Why? Because they know that any such feeble reform will fail and damage teh Democrats, that the Republicans will re-gain power, and their problems will be solved. Meanwhile, the entire country is forced to become their customers through the so-called reform. Not bad, huh?

This is right. If the subsidies aren't adequate and the regulations don't have teeth, we have just delivered lower- income people to the insurance jackals. But this is what the Blue Dogs would saddle us with because they fundamentally don't believe in taxing the rich to subsidize lower-income people, and they won't agree to cost-cutting measures like the public option or curbs on reimbursement. If the choice is between that kind of "reform" and nothing, I'd say take nothing and start over with "Medicare for All."

The small minds in Congress and the Administration are a real disappointment. You'd think we could do better than this.

Agree, the kind of reform I see looming, at least from the breathless reporting of daily verbal burps from the politicians, is the worst possible outcome -- worse than NO reform, because it will include half of the equation, the part that says the more people in the insurance pool, the cheaper it is for all, while eliminating the other half, the part where affordable health care is GUARANTEED.

I'd like to think subsidies are the compromise we can live with, but they've already been scaled down thanks to the GOP, will likely be scaled down more to satisfy the rest of the GOP, and will never ever keep up with the cost of living in the future. (See: Wage, minimum)